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8 Marketing Tips for Landlords

A vacant rental property is expensive. If you have a mortgage to pay on your property and no tenants, a few months can create big financial losses. To keep the window between tenants to a minimum, your marketing strategy needs to be top-notch. You want to attract good, lasting tenants. In a sea of vacancies and a slew of competition, your property has to stand out in the best way possible. Marketing real estate is a serious business, and it’s not one that you can afford to neglect. Much of real estate investment is a people business — communicating, relating and relationship building. A lot of those interactions shine in how you choose to market your properties.

Maybe you’ve been doing everything that you can think of to attract tenants but, for some reason, none of your advertising efforts seems to be bearing fruit. If you’re frustrated by marketing your rental, let us offer a few tips to get your property off of the market and back to making good returns.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the case of real estate, a picture can be worth a few thousand dollars. In this day and age, you must have attention-grabbing photos of your rental property in order to attract interested parties. Whether they’re going online or in a publication, though, you need to make sure your photography is effective — which means it’s professional.

Having professional photos of your property not only encourages people to look longer at your property, but can boost your asking price. Even if you don’t hire a photographer, there are a few tips that can add a lot of polish to your property photos.

2. A Detailed Listing

Don’t make your prospective tenants work to find details about your property. Most people looking for a rental in this day and age are looking online and want to quickly be able to make comparisons. If you are unclear on things like monthly lease (or you require an inquiry to find out what it is), pet policies or amenities, that’s a strike against your property for someone looking. People want to know as much as possible about a property before committing to a serious pursuit. I would encourage you to be as specific as possible and skip the flowery language. It does not work as well online. Instead, stick to your message of quality and service. If you plan to offer a great property and responsive service to their needs, then tell them! But lose all the flowery language about the beauty and tranquility of the area unless you have a babbling brook running through the backyard. Tenants want to know what they are getting and they have hundreds (usually) to choose from.

3. Internet Savvy Advertising

Speaking of this day and age, it will hurt you not to be up to snuff on your Internet advertising. If you’re advertising your property on a website, make sure they’re well-timed. Studies show that listing put up on a Friday get more views and, for homes, sold faster than those put up on other days. The same can be said of rentals. Don’t be afraid to post your listing more than once, either!

There are other strategies for your online property marketing beyond posting a listing. You could, for example, record and post a video tour of your property on YouTube, letting prospective tenants see and grow interested in your property from the comfort of their homes.

Taking the time to market your property effectively is well worth it for your overall investment. It can revolutionize your entire image for the better, meaning more tenants and a healthier, more profitable investment for you. What about other specific marketing ideas that may not fall into traditional thinking?

4. Understand Your Demographic

If you’re targeting a very specific sort of family or individual to rent your property, you need to keep that in consideration in any and all advertising. If you’re targeting families with children, for instance, make amenities in your property that will appeal to children take the spotlight when you talk and write about your rental. Talk about the spacious backyard, put up a tire swing in a tree. The same sort of consideration should be taken into account for every audience. If you’re targeting seniors, find out what seniors want in a property and highlight those features. Market your property at local recreation centers and workout facilities where you are likely to have families see them. Place advertisements on local grocery store boards and even at daycare centers near and around your property. A simple request of the owners may be all it takes to have your property marketed directly to families in your area that may love the amenities for families that your property provides.

Save the plywood and paint and get a real “For Rent” sign. While the kind you can pick up at a hardware store is acceptable, those signs are hardly unique. In a competitive market, you need to stand out — even in your signage. You can order custom, inexpensive signs online from places like BuildaSign.com. Include a few quick, substantial details like number of bedrooms, monthly rent, and whether or not utilities are included. Make sure to include a contact number and email address. Avoid real estate jargon that will muddy your message. When you put your sign out for the world to see, make sure it’s near the street. If you really want to go all-out, you can spend a few more dollars and try this tactic that we have used for years to bring in the street rents

Place more than one sign in the yard. Place them starting from the curb and line them going back to the house and tell the prospective tenants why your place is best! Beautifully Renovated! New 4 Bedroom/ 3 Bath Home! Use three or four signs with one of them telling the prospective tenants how to contact you. The visual effect alone will catch their eyes and draw them to your property. Make sure they are lined up straight. Do not let the signs be placed all haphazardly around the yard. If you are going to make an impression and try to grab the attention of a passer-by at least try to make it the best impression possible! Get them to stop and take a look.

6. Roll-out Incentives

Consider offering something special to your would-be tenants when they sign on for the long-term. That could be the first month rent-free, free parking, the spreading out of their security deposit over the lease, or any other perks you can offer to your tenants that commit to calling your property home. Not only do incentives help hook tenants in the first place, but they keep them coming back. Waived fees, gift cards, move-in specials…get creative! I will say I am not a fan of the free T.V. crowd. I would much rather install something useful like an alarm system than a T.V. Just stay creative and try some different offers to bring in the eyes.

7. Open House

Throwing an open house can be a great way to garner exposure for your property. Open Houses don’t have the same stress on viewers as that of an official showing. Often, they’ll attract the unsure and the curious. If anything, getting more one-on-one exposure will also help with word of mouth. Let passersby see the inside of your property by pulling up the blinds and letting them take a peak. Plus, if you have multiple properties for rent (such as a property management company), an open house allows you to put out flyers for tenants to see everything you have. If they rent this property or that property does not always matter. The point of the open house is to bring in eyes on your property(s).

If you want to hold a traditional Sunday afternoon Open House, time it well. Open an hour earlier or stay open an hour later than the open houses of surrounding properties. It may else help to have a plate of fresh-baked cookies or refreshments available for your visitors. You property can shine on it’s own, but small, friendly and personal gestures will help keep you and your house or apartment in their minds. Also, make sure you give guests an easy way to leave their information. Have a registration for a free giveaway such as a book. Something that will have some value, but nothing to break the bank over. Then collect the registrations. Send everyone a thank you email along with the winning announcement and ask them if you can send additional properties for rent. It is a great way to communicate quickly with a group of very interested tenants.

8. Use Networking

We’re not talking Internet advertising here — not in the way of posting listings. One thing you can do is utilize social media to spread the word. With Twitter and Facebook you can reach people who are friends of friends of friends that would not have otherwise heard of you or your property.

Beyond the casual conventions of social media, which make for great free advertising, you can fall back on older, tried-and-true advertising methods. Put up flyers on community bulletin boards that can often be found in grocery stores, coffee shops and community centers. If you’re in a college town, you can even go for the student center to attract student tenants.

Think, too, about how to target the neighborhood. Send postcards advertising the property in its neighborhood — the people living close by likely know someone who needs to rent and they have an interest in making sure good people end up next door. If you sweeten the pot a little with…say a gift card to a local establishment, you could find yourself with others renting your house for you.